As Santa Clara County's elected district attorney, I work with 182 of the finest, most dedicated prosecutors in this state and oversee a $90 million annual budget to achieve justice and public safety for residents. Every decision I have made since I took office has been aimed at furthering those goals, including my decision to grant administrative leave to supervising prosecutors.

In September 2011, all prosecutors took a pay cut. On top of that, the supervising prosecutors took an additional pay cut. Their small stipend was eliminated, so that they earned the same as those they supervise. At most jobs, supervisors make more money than the employees they manage. It's not because supervisors are more important, necessarily work harder, or are better than other valued workers. It's because they have broader responsibilities and increased administrative duties.

So I gave the supervisors administrative leave -- paid time off -- in place of their lost stipend.

Historically, in this office, administrative leave has been granted in recognition of a wide variety of extraordinary work, always as an incentive for the best employees to continue to undertake this work. I intended to restore that vital incentive.

While my intention was to remedy this unfair situation and I had the authority to do it, I now realize that I should have handled things differently. I understand that my decision has created confusion among the public whom we serve. In retrospect, I see that I could have avoided some of this confusion by communicating earlier and more effectively with county officials outside of my office. I apologize.

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At the same time, I want to assure residents that awarding administrative leave was fully within my authority and was not a gift of public funds. Along with many other department heads, I have the authority to grant administrative leave when it serves the public.

Prosecutors, like salaried employees in many other county agencies, routinely work more hours than are shown on their paychecks. Sometimes, these extra hours go way beyond the norm.

Select prosecutors, for example, will serve shifts on-call seven days a week at all hours to answer police officers' questions and help them prepare search warrants. Some trials last for weeks or even months and require work during nearly every waking hour. Administrative leave has long been granted in these extraordinary situations as an incentive for prosecutors to continue to undertake such difficult tasks. In this way, it is an important tool to help achieve our mission of justice and public safety.

Moreover, any expenditure of funds caused by this policy is easily absorbed into the DA office's already-approved budget and does not require any additional public money.

My resolve to better communicate with county officials and others does not signal that the DA should be restricted from working independently within the law and his allotted budget to do the people's job.

Prosecutors must make myriad difficult legal decisions free from political interference. Perhaps the best example was our successful prosecution of former Board of Supervisors President George Shirakawa Jr. It is in that spirit that the DA is given a budget and the freedom to work within it to prosecute such cases and all of the other 40,000 cases we prosecute each year.

I am proud of and humbled by our community's faith in me. I am optimistic that we can put this matter of administrative leave behind us and focus on our core mission. Every day, our prosecutors are working tirelessly on residents' behalf to achieve justice and public safety for all.

Jeff Rosen is Santa Clara County district attorney. He wrote this for this newspaper.